Her First Kiss
by goberdoober
Summary: Rogue's first kiss, what would have been a rite of passage for most became a traumatic experience that would haunt her for the rest of her life. You know the bare bones of the tale, here it is fleshed out for interest's sake. Please review!


**Hey everybody, this is my first fanfiction to be written in … years. Damn. Anyway, I know the story might be a tired one but I've begun re-reading my comics and watching the cartoons for X-Men again; and they never really did the story justice. Worse, the different crossovers provide slightly different stories. I know in one she's much younger, in another she doesn't know Cody at all and it doesn't happen with a kiss (I think X-Men Evolution didn't have the right ratings for kisses, do you ever see 1 couple touch each other on the mouth?), etc. So I took my own swing at it. **

**I was concerned about making her 15, I was tempted to make her 13 because Rogue has that "embrace everything in life ASAP" persona and I can't really see her waiting very long – but I hope I explain her reasoning well enough (let me know!). I don't really have the patience for writing in their vernacular, so you'll notice there isn't much dialogue. I figure if Rogue were to be writing this in a diary, looking back on her life, she wouldn't write "ah" so I didn't either. However, I did let some of their grammar slip through (when their grammar needed to). Things like "might could" were done on purpose! **

**Funnily enough, this was supposed to be a chapter in a much larger arc with a surprise ending for Rogue's love life. But I'm not sure I'm ready to begin that tale yet, so I figure this will do as a stand-alone, for now. Fun Fact: most of this was written on a notepad app on my phone while I was at work with nothing to do. Anyway, thanks for reading! Please review! Like I said, this is the first story in a very long while and I'd love to hear your feedback. **

My powers first manifested at the tender age of 15, when the boy I had grown up dreaming of marrying had asked me out for a walk in the woods that covered the part of Caldecott County, Mississippi – where we were from. "Let's take a walk, Possum. Let's see the moon; it's full as a cream pie tonight, Anna."

As we walked in the dark, beneath the trees and the stars, Cody wrapped his arm oh so casually around my shoulders. Murmuring something about a chill in the air, his breath was hot against my neck and his lips were so close I could practically feel the outline of them along the very sensitive ridge of my ear.

The hand that hung from his very warm and very comfortable arm began to toy with the curls of my shoulder length chestnut hair. My heart began to beat much faster and I imagined that the tug from my core matched the rhythm of his fingers sliding through my hair, then wrapping around. Sliding through my hair, then wrapping around, b-bump, b-bump, slide, wrap, the air softly panting in my suddenly too tight lungs. I pretended not to feel the static charge in the air, tried to calm my heart and slow my breathing.

Cody and I had been friends since we met during our first week of grade school. Neither of us had had a boyfriend or girlfriend, yet - mostly because we had been too busy circling each other to notice if someone else was interested. We were also a couple of the last kids in our class who hadn't had our first kisses yet. We'd been to a party the night before, and I'd been shocked to realize that most of our friends were dating, and kissing, and ... already. The night had ended awkwardly when one of Cody's older brothers had practically dared us to kiss in front of the whole room. I had flushed a brilliant shade of scarlet and Cody had almost come to blows with Ed.

Things between us had changed when we started high school, a few months back. Sure we didn't talk about it, but there was an ever present electricity in the air that reminded us that our childhood was ending. We didn't hug as much, and we definitely stopped wrestling. Things became ... uncomfortable when we did.

So when Cody asked me to take a walk with him tonight, after the incident at the party, I knew the time had finally come. We'd clung to our innocence for as long as we could. We hadn't been afraid of taking this new step in our relationship. I think we were both just nervous that closing the doors to the simple friendship of our youth we would somehow lose each other in the process. Could Cody still be the boy I used to pick worms out of the ground with if I was busy daydreaming about the feel of his muscles under my hands? What if things stopped being joyful fun and became heavy and boggled with must and sex and physical needs - needs that neither of us really understood? Later, I would be chagrined to find out that Cody had waited because I was waiting, and he figured he'd follow my lead and see how it went.

As I remembered all the reasons we had waited so long to do this, my excitement became tinged with nerves. We walked silently; Cody seemed so calm staring at the sky with a bit of grass stuck between his lips. His hair was a mess; he never bothered to do more than rake his fingers through the sides to pretend to comb it. My own fingers itched to arrange it for him, but I knew if I did that I'd have to face him - what if he took that to be some kind of invite? Or worse, what if he didn't and this was all in my head?

Finally, we reached a small patch of open ground, a camping space where we used to meet as kids and plot out our great adventures. We could map out or lives in that patch of dirt. Cody tightened his grip on my shoulders for just a moment before he released me. Tugging the stem of grass from his mouth he ask me, so sweetly, "You about ready, girl?"

Cody rarely asks me what I want. Growing up I made it perfectly clear loudly, vocally, and physically (if necessary) what I did and did not want to do. He had gone home with more than one black eye after a scuffle with me. My mother might have had the charm of Mississippi's finest Southern Belle but Daddy definitely didn't raise me to take crap from the likes of Cody Robbins.

My eyes flitted to my toes for an instant, as if they might know the secret to what came next. Then, I squared my shoulders and looked right at him, dead in the eye. For about a second we both gazed at each other, as resolute as soldiers about to face Armageddon. His eyes began to twinkle, my nose wrinkled slightly, he tried to suppress a laugh and gave a loud guffaw, my mouth stretched into a grin, and soon we were both laughing too hard to take the moment as seriously as we both were so sure it deserved.

When I finally caught my breath we were standing less than a foot apart and his hands were cupping the backs of my arms in an effort to steady me as I'd bent over with my laugh. I felt the warmth of his hands through the almost nonexistent cotton of my shirt sleeves, and my heart began to thunder like stampeding horse hooves. Before I could chicken out I looked into his face, at his lips - lips I had begun to think beautiful over the past few months. I daydreamed over his lips every time he smiled that smile that told me he thought I had done something clever. Little did I know that to him, that smile started to become instinctive when he thought I was being particularly cute. I never think of myself as being "cute" but that was Cody's perspective. One I would come to know as intimately as my own.

We zeroed in on each other's lips and suddenly it was happening. Our first kiss, in a single moment the world became the space where our lips touched and our breath mixed. He smelled like sweet hay, and his denim jacket molded stiffly over the muscles I knew he had, muscles grown over a summer of chucking and baling hay. I'd never really thought about how wet the inside of another person's mouth was, or how the accidental smack of inexperienced kisser's teeth could make a faint clacking sound. His arms stiffened around me and I pressed closer as our kiss deepened. The heat of his body flooded my own as I felt the hard length of him flush against my thigh - had there been a chill that night, this moment would have permanently burned it from me.

The mating of our tongues was heady and Cody groaned. I felt a tingle all over, and just as I let my hands reach for the unruly hair that my fingers itched to tunnel through, the pit of my stomach dropped out and my ears rang faintly. If Cody had not been holding me I would have fallen in a swoon at the sudden change in balance.

I clutched his jacket - Damn, her ass feels so good, no wonder my brother teased me for waiting so long - Cody's lips were so warm and strong, I couldn't get away from them - Her breasts are so soft, I wish I didn't have any clothes between them and my chest - I couldn't pull away, he'd gone completely stiff - Hang that, I wish SHE didn't have any clothes on! - What? - Anna, I want you so much - Inside my head? Am I going crazy?

Suddenly, the groan Cody had given turned into a pain filled cry and I was finally able to pull out of his arms. He gave a long agonizing moan while I felt the sudden disorientation of his entire psyche merging with mine. And then I wasn't Anna Marie anymore.

I was Cody. Cody Robbins, 15 years old, junior varsity quarterback for the high school football team, one of 4 boys with loving parents who ran the local diary slash produce farm. My skin was hot from a mild sun burn and my chin itched where I had proudly shaved the first sightings of facial hair off for tonight. My brother had told me that girls sometimes didn't like the way a man's beard tickled their face, while another brother made a shocking (and hard-on inducing) remark about how they didn't always like the way it rubbed on other parts of their bodies either. I blushed to think about where Cody's beard might have also ended up touching, at some point in the future of our relationship. I was truly hard at the thought of what else of Anna's my lips might could one day touch. No. No, Cody's on the ground and he's not moving. I don't have brothers. Holy shit, that kiss rocked until it began to hurt - hurt so bad I thought I was gonna pass out like a girl. Damn, Anna Marie doesn't like me to think that girls are weaker than guys.

Cody Robbins, age 15, future football star. Anna Marie, daughter of former Miss Mississippi and an abusively strict bigger-than-life Daddy. Cody, Anna, Cody, Anna Marie, Cody, Anna.

As I stared down at this boy who meant so much to me, a boy who looked dead, I heard his voice yammer on and on in my head like I was him and suddenly I was wondering "Who am I?"

I won't write anymore about that night except to say that I ran through the forest to the clearing that separated his farm from my trailer and screamed and screamed at the horror of his being in my head, at his horror at realizing that he didn't run like we were running and that those were BOOBS jiggling on our, no MY, chest as we ran. I will tell you that his dad called the ambulance and I convinced nearly everyone in our town that I was having a mental breakdown of monumental proportions after Cody went into a coma he would never ever recover from.

It was only days after that, when I and my entire town began to fear the touch of my skin, that we began to realize what was happening. This was a little while before much of the public began to understand what mutants were and I ran away from home before Daddy learned. One night, after I touched my poor mother by accident, he whipped his belt off to beat the devil out of me. I had accidentally drained the memories of 3 people before I figured out how to totally avoid skin contact with others. Thankfully none of the others ended up in a coma and their psyches faded from my mind after a time. The first time I began to realize the beauty of physical intimacy was also the night that I learned to fear myself. I feared my very skin, and I swore to deny myself any simple touches, even the complex wondrous touches so loved by every other human on the planet, for the rest of my life. And I truly thought I would be able to do so. How naïve of me.


End file.
